Physical Therapy, Why Grapplers Stay Hurt, Injury Prevention in Jiu Jitsu | Ep. 160

Here's the verbatim transcript of the audio: Speaker 2: You're listening to the Simple Man with Ethan Krell and Stan Nikki Rod and Damian Anderson. Oh. Stay a while if you know about the jiu-jitsu. If you don't, you can come too. This is PT. Speaker 3: Guys, welcome back to another episode of The Simple Man Podcast. I'm Damian. Speaker 4: I'm Ethan. Speaker 5: I'm Nikki Rod. Speaker 4: Keep doing this. Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, every time because Speaker 4: It's been like a few hundred episodes. Speaker 3: Yeah, but not everyone that that listens to us will know us. There we're going to get guys that want to listen to the guest and we have to introduce ourselves to them. Speaker 4: Hmm. I don't know about that. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 4: Well, who are you? Speaker 5: I'm Okay, well Speaker 4: I'm Nikki Rod. Speaker 5: I don't know. I next time I might not answer. I might skip that part. Speaker 3: Okay, that's fine. Well, we have a very special guest with us. Dr. Danny Spalding. He is our basically our physical physical therapist, physio. Um, you know, a lot of us have been injured in the sport on the team and you were the guy that we all went to to make sure that we got back to uh health. Yeah, full health, be able to to scrap and compete fully. So, yeah, if you want to give, you know, a better introduction, go right ahead. Speaker 6: Sure. Yeah, I'm Dr. Danny Spalding. I'm a physical therapist, uh performance coach as well. Let's see, I've been working in physical therapy for close to 10 years, coaching before that, working mostly with athletes the whole time. Um, I'd say I really started working with jiu-jitsu a lot whenever um we first met. Speaker 3: Yep. Speaker 5: Yep. Speaker 6: And then it kind of like rolls from there. Speaker 4: Snowballed from there. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 4: Do you have any beef with chiropractics? Speaker 6: Beef in what way? Speaker 4: Believe in it. Speaker 6: Believe in it? Um, I have friends that are chiropractors. Speaker 4: Yeah, like if you saw Speaker 3: And I hate them. Speaker 4: Yeah, are you guys like Speaker 6: It really depends. So, yeah, the chiropractic world, some of it can be um a little bit Speaker 4: Witchcraft. Speaker 6: Less science-based. Speaker 4: Then uh Speaker 6: Less science-based. Speaker 3: Same, same thing. Speaker 4: A little bit less science-based. Speaker 6: Yeah. And um, I mean, the the the good thing about it is people go see chiropractors when they're in pain and they get pain relief. But the more important thing is what they do whenever they experience the pain relief. And um, the fault of some chiropractors is that during that window of time where they're pain-free, they don't intervene any further where there's no movement or exercise prescription given. So no real change occurs. Speaker 4: Continual rehabilitation. Speaker 6: Yeah, whether that's like a software update or like physical tissue structural change. And so that envelope of time that that window of time that happens after like a, you know, an adjustment. Speaker 3: Yeah, good. Speaker 4: These people get degrees. Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. Speaker 4: Seven. Speaker 6: Yeah, they get a doctorate in chiropractic. Speaker 4: Oh, wow. Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of great chiropractors who who do a lot of really good work. Don't get me wrong. I'd say it's a little bit more, it can be a little bit more divisive than uh physical therapy where um you might go see a chiropractor down the street and then another chiropractor down the street on the same street and it's too wildly different experiences. I'd say it's still that way with physical therapy, but it might be a little bit closer to the middle. Speaker 3: So how do you differ from other physical therapists at, you know, as a performance coach, you know, obviously you're working with athletes. Uh, so maybe there's like physical therapy at Kessler or whatever. But all the athletes or high-level athletes want to go, you know, work with you. What makes you different compared to them? Speaker 6: Different compared to other physical therapists? Speaker 4: Just better in every single way. Speaker 5: More handsome. Speaker 4: Obviously. Speaker 5: More better looking. Speaker 6: I'll leave that up to you guys to say. I mean, I think there are probably a lot of ways in which I'm similar to other physical therapists. I'm not a magic worker by any means. Um, I think what makes me me is I really care about every client that walks in the door. Um, and I'm very heavily vested in their journey. And so like every time like during our, you know, path working together, like I cared very heavily about seeing you get back to training, right? And that's that's it's that way with every client. And so I go on above and beyond to really have um a lot of care for each client and to really try to tailor the program around them. And so I don't think that necessarily makes me unique, but that's part of, you know, what makes makes me me, I guess. Speaker 3: For sure. Speaker 4: Can we I want to also like get into a little bit of like your origins, like how did you end up choosing physical therapy? Like you probably had a lot of, you know, I don't know, background, like your origins leading up to this, like what made you choose this field of Speaker 6: Yeah. Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of these guys start in sports where you're an athlete first and then it was like, this isn't working out. Speaker 6: I actually Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, every time because Speaker 5: That's the Speaker 3: I tore my ACL. I tore my ACL and then I had physical therapy and then I thought it was great, so I wanted to be one. Speaker 5: No, that was not Speaker 4: Is that actually it? Speaker 5: No. Speaker 4: Oh, okay. I thought I nailed it. Speaker 5: No. Speaker 3: See? I told you. Speaker 6: No, that wasn't me. Speaker 4: Okay, how did it go? Speaker 6: Uh, actually, I didn't even apply to PT school coming out of high school. Actually, I was quite, I won't dive into the full story, but uh, I was like Speaker 4: It's a dark and stormy night. Speaker 6: Yeah, a rebellious high school kid. I played like most sports. None of them really organized. I played a lot of soccer, basketball, a lot of skateboarding and boxing. Those were my four things. Speaker 4: Skateboarding. Speaker 6: Yeah. Skateboarding and soccer probably uh were the main two. Speaker 4: Skateboarding like park, street. Speaker 6: Yeah, street. I never really did much vert. Um Speaker 4: Vert. Speaker 6: And so Speaker 4: Like vertical. Speaker 6: Yeah, so like half pipes. Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. Speaker 6: Mostly street. Speaker 4: I know, it's for them that I'm I know that means. Yeah, yeah. **Speaker 6:** So, like we would skate on a lot of like uh public school. **Speaker 3:** Nice. **Speaker 6:** Public school like grounds and get kicked out. Things like that. Yeah. And so out of high school, I didn't like play organized sports. I graduated. I applied to actually um auto mechanic school to work on like performance cars. Like NASCAR and F1. And I got into that and for whatever reason, I don't exactly remember, but I changed my mind. I'm like, I want to work with people. So I applied to paramedic school. And got into that and then **Speaker 4:** Got in, yep. **Speaker 6:** I probably got one semester into that, like the core curriculum and then moved into exercise science because I wanted to um work more in like the performance side of working with people. **Speaker 4:** So you're working on performance for cars and then you move to performance with people. **Speaker 6:** I guess so, yeah. I think the common thread is like problem-solving. Is really what it comes down to. And then I really liked the exercise science field, but I'm like, I want to I don't want to be a just a coach for the rest of my life. I want to work at a bigger scale than that. And coaching is great. I still coach to this day, but um, I wanted to work at a higher level, like a doctoral level, but the experiences that I had growing up with doctors was very minimal. We didn't go to the doctor unless we were dying. Um, but anytime we did, we saw a doctor probably for five minutes. I'm like, I don't feel like I have a relationship with a guy. I just go there and get medicine. And so knowing what I did know about physical therapy, there's more of an opportunity to build a relationship with your clients and make a true difference. And so, um, yeah, that's really what led me down that path. **Speaker 4:** Yeah, well, I mean, you made a huge difference for me. Like I I, you know, came to I think I was like referred to Collective from like where I was doing physical therapy in Montreal for my ACL. **Speaker 6:** Yeah, I remember that. **Speaker 4:** And then uh, yeah, I came to Collective and then we ended up working together. I guess they'd just kind of pair you with someone. I don't know how that exactly worked, but **Speaker 6:** At the time at Collective, um, it was a business partner and I and um, it was us two primarily primarily seeing clients. And my business partner at the time was more on the leadership side and I was seeing more of the clients. And I just, I think that's primary primarily what drove that. **Speaker 4:** Okay. **Speaker 6:** And I think the person that you were introduced to, like just directly referred you to me. **Speaker 4:** Okay. Said, hey, this is your guy. **Speaker 6:** Yeah. **Speaker 4:** So yeah, and we started working together. We did a lot of a lot of great work there. I remember there was like like heavy graded in my routine. Yeah, that was when I first landed in Austin. **Speaker 3:** Yeah, that was when I first landed in Austin. **Speaker 4:** Yeah. **Speaker 3:** Tell everybody like what injury that was, what happened. **Speaker 4:** Yeah